When Return-to-Office Meets Your Medical Restrictions

Emily A. Hall ·

Across the federal workforce in 2026, one collision keeps surfacing: return-to-office mandates running into employees' medical accommodations. If you have a condition that made telework or a modified schedule workable, and that arrangement is now in question, it is worth understanding how this moment intersects with FERS Disability Retirement — and, just as importantly, where the two are not the same thing.

The current squeeze

Reporting through 2026 has documented federal employees with disabilities being ordered back in person despite accommodation exemptions. Government Executive reported in January 2026 on employees across multiple agencies describing tightened approval layers and rescinded arrangements, noting that qualifying employees with disabilities were exempt from the mandate on paper while many were being directed to in-person work in practice.

The picture has continued to develop. In April 2026 a formal executive order codified the five-day in-person requirement, replacing what had been a presidential memorandum — a distinction that matters for how the requirement interacts with union contracts, and one that is still being litigated. Arbitrators have ordered reinstatement of telework for bargaining-unit employees at more than one agency, with those decisions under appeal. Separate lawsuits filed in mid-2026 allege that a Justice Department component categorically denied telework accommodation requests.

The through-line for an individual employee: an accommodation you relied on can be revisited, and for some people the job becomes medically unsustainable as a result.

What OPM's guidance actually says

This is the part worth knowing before you react to anything, because it cuts in two directions at once.

Agencies cannot take a blanket approach to rescinding telework accommodations. Each has to be an individualized determination — a categorical policy that sweeps away existing accommodations without assessing them one by one is not what the Rehabilitation Act contemplates.

At the same time, employees are not entitled to telework indefinitely, and agencies are permitted to reassess previously granted accommodations. An arrangement that was approved in 2021 is not immune from review in 2026.

So "they can't take this away" is wrong, and so is "they can do whatever they like." What the law requires is an individualized, interactive process — and whether your agency actually conducted one is a question worth documenting carefully as it happens, not reconstructing later from memory.

Two different tracks — don't confuse them

Reasonable accommodation under the Rehabilitation Act is about keeping you in your job by modifying how the work gets done, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the agency.

FERS Disability Retirement is a separate benefit for when your medical condition means you can no longer render useful and efficient service in your position at all.

One tries to preserve the job. The other applies when the job is no longer possible. Pursuing an accommodation — or an EEO complaint if one is wrongly denied — is a distinct process, often attorney or EEO territory, from applying for disability retirement.

Why the accommodation question is built into the disability retirement test

Here is what ties the two together, and why the order of your decisions matters so much.

FERS Disability Retirement eligibility specifically requires that accommodation of your condition in your position would be unreasonable (5 CFR § 844.103(a)(4)), and that you have not declined an offer of reassignment to a vacant position at the same grade or pay for which you are qualified (§ 844.103(a)(5)).

In other words, the record of what your agency could or could not do to keep you working is not a side issue. It is an element OPM evaluates directly.

That cuts both ways. If an agency genuinely cannot accommodate your medical restrictions, that fact can support a disability retirement case. But if you turn down a reasonable reassignment that would have worked, that can be disqualifying. How an accommodation was requested, how the agency handled it, and how all of it was documented are not administrative details — they become evidence.

The medical documentation has to speak in terms of function

Whatever track you are on, the medical record does the heavy lifting. It needs to show the specific restrictions, how they conflict with your actual duties — including any in-person requirement now being imposed — and that the condition is expected to persist for at least a year (§ 844.103(a)(2)–(3)).

A physician's letter saying you cannot work is a conclusion. What OPM needs is the reasoning: which functions, which limitations, and what clinical basis supports them.

What the 2026 Garland decision does — and doesn't — change

In Garland v. Office of Personnel Management, No. 2024-2291 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 22, 2026), the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision reversing OPM's denial of disability retirement to a former OPM employee whose claim rested on psychiatric evidence.

It is worth being precise about the holding, because it is narrower than some summaries suggest.

Under Bruner v. OPM, 996 F.2d 290 (Fed. Cir. 1993), an employee removed from federal service for medical inability to perform is entitled to a rebuttable presumption of disability, which shifts the burden of production to OPM. Garland holds that OPM cannot satisfy that burden simply by asserting a lack of "objective" medical evidence. The court was explicit that OPM may still cite a lack of objective evidence as part of its case — it just cannot be the sole basis.

The broader principle that people often attribute to Garland actually comes from an older case. In Vanieken-Ryals v. OPM, 508 F.3d 1034 (Fed. Cir. 2007), the court held it is legal error to reject medical evidence as entitled to no probative weight at all solely because it lacks so-called objective measures such as laboratory tests, and that any evidence using established diagnostic criteria and consistent with generally accepted professional standards is eligible for consideration. Garland applies that reasoning to the Bruner context.

Why the distinction is practical: the Bruner presumption only attaches if you were removed for medical inability to perform. If you resigned, or are still employed, that presumption does not apply to you and Garland's specific holding does not reach your situation. Vanieken-Ryals still does — which matters a great deal for conditions like PTSD, chronic pain, or depression, where objective testing is inherently limited.

Where this leaves you

If a return-to-office order is pushing against real medical limits, you have decisions to make in a particular order, and getting them out of order can cost you options. Declining a reassignment without understanding § 844.103(a)(5) is the clearest example.

Before you react, it is worth mapping where you actually stand: whether accommodation, reassignment, or disability retirement fits your facts, what your medical record needs to say, and what to document while it is still happening rather than afterwards.

That mapping — an honest read and a written plan — is what a strategy consult is built for. And if your situation turns out to need an attorney, whether for a denied accommodation or an appeal, I will tell you that plainly rather than take the work.

Educational only — not legal advice, and not a determination of your eligibility, which rests solely with OPM. Rules and agency policy in this area are changing quickly; verify current requirements against official OPM guidance and your own agency's correspondence.

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